Supply of domestic coal is expected to tighten further as authorities in China’s northwestern province had ordered open-pit mines to shut down, market sources said Wednesday. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now According to a document recently released by local authorities in Shenmu and Fugu, counties in Shaanxi’s Yulin city, all open-pit coal mines will have to be shut by end of this year. This is to “win the battle in cleaning up the environment and protecting the ecology, as well as solving the problem of illegal resource mining,” the document said. The document also detailed timeline for the actions, including extinguishing the fire by end of March, land reclamation by end of September, and to ensure proper work closure by end-November. “These open mines are like ticking time bombs, we won’t know when there will be safety problems surfacing, so […]